News

Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose L. Cuisia, Jr. joined yesterday a high-profile panel forum on the Obama administration’s Partnership for Growth (PFG), organized by the Center for Global Development (CGD), a leading non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on international development.

The Ambassador joined three other ambassadors from PFG pilot partner countries: Ambassador Francisco Altschul of the Embassy of El Salvador; Ambassador Daniel Ohene Agyekum of the Embassy of Ghana; and Ambassador Mwanaidi S. Maajar of the Embassy of Tanzania.

“Learning the lessons of development cooperation between the Philippines and the US for the last 50 years, the PFG was consciously designed to complement and support key elements under the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011-2016 of the Aquino administration, and attuned to the President’s Social Contract with the Filipino People,” Ambassador Cuisia conveyed during the panel forum.

Ms. Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the US President at the National Security Council (NSC) said that PFG “is built on an equal, mature relationship with partners who are committed to development.”

MCC Chief Economist Franck Wiebe emphasized that the PFG is a “game changing model” that involves multi-agency teams from both the USG and the PFG partner country, while USAID Assistant Administrator Eric Postel confirmed the PFG program was designed “around analytical challenges” to address the partner country’s key constraints to growth.

US Department of State Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, Jose Fernandez, in turn, validated the PFG as a dynamic process that “catalyzes” involvement of key stakeholders in the case of El Salvador.

On 16 November 2011, the PFG Statement of Principles was signed in Manila by Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario and State Secretary Clinton, affirming a five-year Joint Country Action Plan (JCAP) that addresses constraints to economic growth (i.e., fiscal space, governance).

The PFG is new framework for deepening and strengthening U.S. engagement with host country governments to promote and support broad-based and inclusive economic growth as the primary development objective.

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